Zolgensma, a one-time drug to treat spinal muscular atrophy in children, costs $2.1 million Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG has received regulatory approval to sell the world's most expensive drug to treat spinal muscular atrophy in children under the age of two.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Zolgensma, a $2.125 million single-dose drug, the company said in a statement.
By comparison, the second most expensive drug in the world, called Luxturna, costs $850,000.
Novartis will allow insurance companies to pay the cost of the drug in equal installments over five years. The company also promises to partially reimburse the amount spent on the drug if it proves ineffective.
"The approval of Zolgensma is confirmation of how significantly gene therapy can change the treatment of life-threatening genetic diseases, such as spinal muscular atrophy," said Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan.
"We believe that Zolgensma can give children and their families suffering from this devastating disease a life of opportunity," he said in a statement.
Spinal muscular atrophy is an inherited disease in which nerve cells in the spinal cord become dysfunctional, leading to the progressive development of muscle weakness and atrophy.
Previously, we wrote about the most expensive drug: Glybera, which costs "only" 1.6 million dollars. We also wrote about the richest doctor on the planet, whose fortune is estimated at 12 billion dollars.
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